Sunny Threads
by amberpire
Summary: Maybe there's an attraction in what exactly you are not. ;Carly/Sam;


You feel really stupid, but you try to justify yourself by thinking you have a good reason.

You twist her hands in your lap, pluck at your pink pajama shorts, and stare at Sam across the room. She's making faces into your mirror, pulling her lips as far as they can go, thrusting her tongue out. You sit up, start to speak, only to fall silent again. You don't know how to form the words without sounding like a crazy, jealous wife. You just feel ... weird, knowing what Sam said about Spencer. You almost feel betrayed.

Which is a stupid thing to feel, you tell yourself firmly, crossing your arms. You shouldn't feel betrayed. Sam doesn't belong to you. But she's your best friend, isn't she? Shouldn't she have said something by now about her ... feelings? You make a face and pull at your hair.

You just don't understand why you feel so jealous and insecure. It's not like Sam is your property, or that just because you've been best friends for most of your lives means that she has to tell you absolutely everything that enters her mind. Aren't there some things Sam doesn't know? Sure ... sure there are. You roll your eyes toward your brow and try to think of something - anything Sam doesn't know. But you're almost certain she knows everything. She knows what every expression on your face means without asking, she knows your guilty pleasure is watching Disney classics, she knows you love corny, cheesy poems, she knows you still have your baby blanket in a box somewhere.

Sam knows everything.

You look at her again, frowning as she pulls her nose up and starts snorting to herself. Why wouldn't she tell you that? Doesn't she trust you? It's Spencer. Your brother. You'd think something like this would have come up.

You fall heavily back on the mattress, bury your head under your pillow, and tell your thoughts to kindly shut up.

"What's buggin' you?"

When you pull back the pillow Sam is hovering in front of your face, blonde hair falling on either side of your cheeks. You blink at the sudden closeness, wondering how in the world she got across your room so fast and so quietly - but she's Sam, and she's almost magical in the way she does things. You sit up, stuffing the pillow in your lap as Sam perches happily on the edge of the bed. You stare at her for a while, studying those charmingly innocent blue eyes, wondering how she could ever hold something like that from you. It seemed too ... best-friend-tellable. Or whatever.

Sam lifts her hand and waves it in front of your face. "Ham to Cupcake. Come in, Cupcake."

You swat her hand away and she just laughs, twirling so she's sitting cross-legged in front of you. She slouches so much like a boy and yet manages to pull off that effortlessly feminine stance. It makes you jealous, the way Sam holds herself. You're bony and awkward where Sam is curvy and confident. Sam's just really ... pretty, you tell yourself, because saying your best friend is anything more than pretty starts stepping on weird. And you're not weird. Maybe.

Sam drums on your knees with her hands, grinning up at you. "Seriously, what's wrong? Anything I can fix? Boys I need to punch?" She suddenly grows excited, hands curling into fists. "Can I punch Freddie?"

"No," you say quickly, knowing all too well how eagerly Sam would take up on that suggestion. "No punching Freddie."

Sam huffs loudly, fists dropping in her lap. "You take the fun out of everything."

You stick your tongue at her and she does it right back at you. The two of you are just the perfect picture of mature sixteen-year-olds.

The room falls quiet again and Sam shuffles. You know she prefers a lot of noise to anything else, but you just don't know what to say, or how to say it, or if you should even be saying it at all. You're still hating yourself for even thinking it, but you can't help it. Sam's as much a part of you as you are. You can't help but feel irked that she wouldn't tell you any of this. Sam's eyebrows are raising at you, disappearing behind her blonde bangs.

"Seriously, Shay. Spill it."

You gnaw at the inside of your lip and look away from her. It's really just futile efforts trying to hide things from Sam. She'll either find out through someone else or go to any means to get you to say it yourself. She'd resort to tickling you so much you would be on the edge of peeing your pants. You know this. She's done it before. You hide your face behind one hand. "I just ... that stuff you said about ... about Spencer ..."

You glance up to see Sam's face contorted in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

You motion with your hands toward your door, not really sure why, but you do it anyway. "What you said earlier about ... having a ... a crush -"

"Oh. Oh!" Sam laughs then, a loud bark as she rolls backwards, one hand on her stomach while the other swats at you. "Carly, I was joking, jeez! Spencer's ... ew, Spencer's _Spencer_. He's like my brother for chizz sake." She runs a fingertip under her eye. "And he's a _bit _old for me, thank you very much."

Well, now you feel like a moron. "Then why did you say it?"

Sam laughs again, propping herself on her elbows. "Why do I say half the things I do? Because I'm me. I'm ... what's that word you always use?"

"Impulsive."

"Thank you. I just say stuff, it doesn't mean it's true." She pauses for a moment, sitting up slowly. "Why were you so bugged about it?"

A blush rises to your cheeks before you can stop it. You knew you were being unnecessarily stupid and jealous about this whole thing. You shake your head quickly, fluttering your hands uselessly in front of you. "Nothing, nothing." You wave her away as you reach mindlessly for you phone, tapping at the buttons but not really seeing the screen. Sam is sliding, inching her way towards you, hands on either side of your legs and this is getting really hot really fast.

"Were you ... jealous?"

You glance up, Sam's brilliant blue eyes in front of your own. You blink furiously, shaking your head quickly and ducking to hunch over your phone again. You're not jealous. You _weren't_ jealous. "No, I'm not jealous, I wasn't - jealous, I was just, I thought you would have told me about something like that -"

"You were jealous." Sam stops again, her eyes inquisitive as she studies you.

And she knows you too well, the words are written all over you face, even as you try to hide behind your phone. "No, I wasn't."

"You are an awful liar," she mumbles, reaching out to take your phone easily out of your hands and setting it aside. Your stomach is doing crazy twists, heat flaring over your skin as she crawls closer and closer. Her lips are parted and her breath is incredibly calm compared to your own, which is hitching and catching in your throat as she moves forward. Her body is swinging like a snake, rolling, but your eyes are flicking between hers and her lips. And then her tongue rolls out, runs itself along the length of her lower lip before disappearing again.

Oh God.

"S-Sam." You're not sure why you're trying to talk, but her name has always felt nice on your tongue, so you repeat yourself. "Sam ..."

And then she's gone, a wave of blonde hair fluttering in front of you as she trots across your room. "I'm hungry." She swings open the door and disappears with a click as it shuts behind her, and you're left clutching at your chest.

Woah. _Woah_. Where did that even come from? You take a few minutes to simply gather your breath, shifting your legs with a jolt of surprise at the warmth that had gathered between them. You give your cheeks a few slaps to get yourself straight, sink into your pillows, and turn on the TV. The sounds fill the room, dense and heavy, and you try to lose yourself in someone elses life for a while. Sam returns with a slab of cheese and what looks like a bag of ribs, but you don't even cast her a curious glance. It's Sam. She always has strange meats packed away somewhere.

She settles beside you, offering you food that you politely decline before becoming acutely aware of how ... close she is. It's not like you and Sam have never been touchy-feely; you have. You sleep together all the time. Sam is always draped over you in some fashion, and you play with her hair, or her fingers, or her feet, even ... it's just always been that way. You're not sure how to describe it. But suddenly, it's like electricity is passing between you and her. You can feel every hair on your body begin to rise to attention as if Sam is some kind of other-wordly source. You turn your eyes slowly to watch her, the smack of her jaw as she chews her meat and cheese, the way her eyes are wide and focused on the TV. Her hair twirls down her face and settles on her shoulders, sunny threads, and they look so pretty laying there that you can't help but reach up and start combing your fingers into them.

You've always known Sam is pretty. It's always been obvious to you that she's gorgeous. Guys admire her all the time, and you realize with a kind of eerie dawning that you don't like it at all when boys look at her ... in fact, you discourage Sam to ever be around boys, because that means less time with you. And maybe you're just a _little _possessive when it comes to Sam, in the way your hands close around her wrist like concrete whenever she tries to leave. She's your best friend. You're just looking out for her, right? Besides, most guys would never really appreciate just how wonderful she is. Most guys would never be able to see past her blue eyes and white smile. They'd never understand her love for food, her vicious talents in video games, her secret mastery of origami ...

It's just that no one would really ever get her as well as you do, and you take a lot of pride in that. Because Sam is such your polar opposite it's surreal you became friends at all. You're clean, she's messy, you're stressful, she's carefree, you're striving for perfection, she settles for what she has, you're a law abiding citizen, and she's been arrested more than once. You're at opposite sides of the spectrum, but maybe Paula Abdul had it right. Maybe there's an attraction in what exactly you are not.

You're still combing through her hair when she looks at you again. Her eyes are soft, not all sharp when she glares at everyone else, like Freddie. You smile at her, let your hand drop and you turn back to the TV, even though nothing can be as interesting as her.

Sam rolls, tucking close to you, an arm wrapping around your waist. You like this close proximity. It's familiar and nice. She smells like meat but you like it a whole lot more than most scents.

"You know I'd always tell you if I had a crush on someone," Sam mumbles, and when you glance down she's staring up at you. Sam's never been afraid to look you in the eyes, has a backbone made of steel. She's thrown grown men to the ground, so it's not like she has any reason to be afraid of scrawny little you. But there's a rawness to her eyes that you adore; you're the only one she lets see it. "You're my best friend."

"I know," you assure her, a hand drifting to touch her cheek. It seems like such an intimate touch, but you don't even really think about it. You never do. You just don't think about those things with Sam. It's Sam. "I was just being stupid."

Sam quirks her brows at you before they fall heavily over her forehead again. "You couldn't be stupid if you tried." Her head plants on your shoulder, claiming it, and then her eyes start to drift closed. Her breath comes out in even, soft sighs, and smells like cheese and ribs.

You let the silence hang around the two of you for a time, relishing in the fact that lack of conversation with Sam doesn't feel strained or awkward like it does with other people. You can be quiet and be okay with it; there's just the soft sound of Sam's breathing and the struggling of your own because you're suddenly very hot in places you didn't think about all that often. You turn to look at her, at your best friend falling asleep on your arm, and you speak, but the words don't come out the first time, so you have to swallow and try again. "_Do _you have a crush on anyone?"

For a long time you think you had waited too long and that Sam had fallen asleep. You lift the remote and click the TV off, carefully leaning over Sam to hit the light switch. The light peels and gives way to darkness and you decide maybe you just don't want know, that if Sam did she would obviously tell you, so you pull the blanket over the two of you and close your eyes.

"Of course I do."

Your eyes open again, but when you look down she's still snuggled up to you with her sleeping face attached to her skin, other than a ghost of smile tugging at her lips. You study her carefully, your heart crashing in your chest like a manic drum under your ribs. "W-who?"

Her eyes do open then, head tilting up, and the absolute bravery in those blue orbs astounds you. Sam's not afraid of anything. "Is it not obvious that I'm in love with you?"

And, yeah, it is. You've just never said anything.

You don't freak out. You don't demand an explanation. You just shrug your shoulders, fall back against the pillow, and say, "Yeah, a little." You pause, then release a short laugh. "Okay, a lot."

Sam chuckles against your shoulder, her arm tightening around your waist. And you guess you've always known that at some point the line between friendship and romance would begin to blur. In fact, you've been planning on it. You smile as you turn your lips to her hair and press a kiss there, and then she's arching up, searching for the first kiss of many to her lips and it's soft and warm, kissing Sam. Your heart squeezes hard, there are airplanes in your stomach, and then she falls against your shoulder again.

"Freddie is going to be _so _jealous."


End file.
